Project Issues
House Locations
The majority of houses are situated on the most visible ridgelines of the site (see grading map). This makes the houses more appealing for the potential owners, but it also makes them visible throughout the community. As alternatives to the highly visible ridgelines, there are plenty of opportunities to put home locations in lower visibility locations.
House sizes
The initial home sizes proposed to the Planning Commission ranged up to 23,000 sq ft. That number was "reduced" to 12,500 sq ft. This still is 3-4 times the size of a typical new Pleasanton home. There are very few existing Pleasanton homes and none on visible ridgelines of this size. This size does not take into account garages or accessory buildings (pool houses, etc).
House Height
The staff report seems to limit the house size to two stories, but a third story is permissible if the third story doesn't over lap the other two. From on off-site location, the structure will appear as three stories tall.
Only the street view gets the benefit of a 1 or 2 story structure, the rest of Pleasanton sees all three stories. This three story allowance has not been used before in Pleasanton. The usual method is to measure the height from lowest point to the highest point, limiting the building to 30'. This method being used here, would allow a structure 50' feet tall.
Visual Analysis
The Planning Commission heard hours of testimony that the visual analysis used in the Environment Impact Report was flawed. Planning Staff and the developer have taken no steps to correct the problems that were identified.
Incorrect home size
The project allows 12,500 sq ft, 3 story homes, but the visual simulations assumed 2-story 6,700 sq ft homes. This dramatically under estimates the visual impact.
Misleading Camera Lens
The visual simulation used a 17mm lens which is considered a fish eye lens. This lens makes foreground images larger and background images smaller than what the eye perceives. The usual standard is to use a 50mm lens to reproduce what the eye sees.
Landscape Screening
The visual simulations assumed landscape could be planted which would screen the homes from off-site locations within 15 years. However, the screening of choice is oaks and they must be planted away from the structures because of fire concerns. The combination of these factors means no screening will likely ever take place. Look the backside of homes on Hearst Dr. to get an idea on screening possible for homes on steep slopes.
Trees
The developer's website touts how only 58 trees will be impacted by the project. What is not said is this only counts heritage trees (taller than 35') and only counts trees impacted by installation of roads. It doesn't count trees that are smaller than heritage size and doesn't count the 100s of trees that would have to be removed to build houses. The staff estimates more than 100 trees would be eliminated, but this count doesn't include trees which need to be removed for fire safety reasons.
Typically when trees are removed for a development there is a replacement plan to plant "mature" trees. For Oak Grove that plan has been watered down to allow the use of "TreePot" size (4"x4"x14" container) seedlings. Not only will these take a long time to grow, their viability is a question. The actual details of the tree replacement program is proposed to be determined after the project is approved.
